I’ve been working at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Library University of Zagreb, Croatia for ten years. Past year was special in professional lives of mine and of my colleagues for several reasons:

1) From June 11, 2015 our Library has been home for Austrijska knjiznica Zagreb (Oesterreich-Bibliothek Zagreb – Austrian Library Zagreb), one of 65 around the world. The Austrian Library currently holds 5500 books and 100 DVDs. The largest part of its collection was taken over from the former library of the Austrian Cultural Forum in Zagreb, which was opened in 1955 as the Austrian Reading Room in Zagreb. The annual acquisition will be carried out by the Ministry for European and International Affairs of Republic of Austria.

2) The Library was part of the Orientation Week 2015. The Library offered 15 thirty minutes “Getting started” sessions and more than 700 students embraced the opportunity. Through sessions students got to know basic Library rules, Library’s web site, whom to contact and similar basic but extremely important things for them as freshmen.

3) Our library is very active in student mentoring program. All the LIS students from our Faculty are required to attend this program in our Library and that is around 50 students per academic year. All librarians participate in the mentoring activities. Since there are very many students, the Library can host no more than 10 students per month. In the beginning of each month we organize Practical Day which is attended by students enrolled in mentoring program. We explain to them the overall Library organization, our services and KOHA, open-source software we use. After that, they are required to shadow colleagues who work on information desks for a day, and finally for three days, they shadow the information specialists or the heads of services.

Looking at the past year, we can be nothing but proud. I hope next year will be even more interesting and stimulating.